[45-DEGREEHASH.]
The only correct proletarian slogan is to transform the present imperialist
war into a civil war. This transformation flows from all the objective
conditions of the current milita ry disaster, and only by systematically
propagandising and agitating in t /t a t direction can the
workers’ parties fulfil the obligations they undertook at
Basle.{2}

Thatis the only kind of tactics that will be truly revolu tiona.ry
working-class tactics, corresponding to the condi tions of the new historical
epoch.
[45-DEGREE HASH.]

Notes

{1}
This is written on a separate page and is marked as an insertion, but
there is no indication which particular article it belongs to. It may well
be a variant of the insertion to the R.S.D.L.P. C.C. manifesto “The War
and the Social-Democracy of Russia”, or to a Bolshevik resolution on the
war.
p. 337

{2}
A reference to the Extraordinary International Socialist Congress held
at Basle on November 24 and 25, 1912. It was called to decide on the
question of fighting the looming danger of an imperialist world war, a
danger: that was intensified by the outbreak of the First Balkan War. The
Congress was attended by 555 delegates. The R.S.D.L.P. C.C. sent
6 delegates. On the opening day, there was a massive anti-war demonstration
and an international rally against war.

OnNovember 25, the Congress unanimously adopted a Manifesto on war. It
warned the nations against the threat of an impending world war, exposed
the plunderous aims of the war being prepared by the imperialists, urged
workers in nil countries to wage a resolute struggle for peace, against the
threat of war, and to “confront capitalist imperialism with the might of
the international solidarity of the proletariat”. In the event of an
imperialist war, the Manifesto advised socialists to use the economic and
political crisis caused by the war to struggle for a socialist revolution.

Theleaders of the Second International (Kautsky, Vandervelde and
others) voted for the Manifesto, but with the outbreak of the world war
they forgot all about the Baste Manifesto and the other decisions of
international socialist congresses on the struggle against war, and sided
with their imperialist governments.
p. 337